New safety measures causing traffic woes at intersection near Cape Coral middle school

New safeguards for students going to and from Trafalgar Middle School through a busy Cape Coral intersection have only added to major traffic backups, and some parents are fed up.

Earlier, neighbors and parents were concerned about safety at the intersection of Trafalgar Parkway and Southwest 20th Avenue. There have been 20 crashes near that intersection since 2019, and the crossing guard in charge of that post tells WINK News that she and students have had several close calls with drivers. Two students have already been hit in that area just in this school year.

Cape Coral city staff completed a field review showing that all-way stop signs were needed due to the increase of preventable crashes at the intersection, but now that they’ve been installed, parents say traffic in the area during pick-up and drop-off time is a nightmare. District leaders say that’s still better than the alternative.

“Drop-off and pick-up is always a difficult time at our schools because it’s a lot of parents who are coming at the same time to pick up or drop off their child,” said Rob Spicker, spokesman for the School District of Lee County. “It’s always going to create a backup. All we can ask of our parents is to be patient. The alternative is that our children are not safe when they’re leaving the school, and the safest way we can manage that is to have you pull in, pick up your child at the front and then pull out, rather than across the street and having them walk at times or places where they don’t need to.”

Some parents say now, because of the all-way stop signs, it takes them 45 minutes to pick up their children from Trafalgar Middle, and even though school starts at 9:30 a.m., they say the morning car line isn’t cleared until after 10 a.m. District leaders also say, however, that they don’t manage the streets. Although they may help the lead agency identify what is needed in an area, the final decision always rests outside LCSD.

“We don’t manage the streets, Spicker said. “The Department of Transportation does, or the county or the city, whichever agency is in charge of those streets. We may have some rules or consultations about what may be needed out there, but the final decision rests with another agency. Installation rests with another agency, and now if that is changing traffic patterns then the schools are going to have to work with the local police, and they’ll figure out if there is a better way that they can manage the traffic.”

Some community members say they would prefer a roundabout instead of all-way stop signs.